letskissbro wrote:Was thinking of making this a new topic but what do you guys think of LeBron's 06 and 07 seasons? They're hardly talked about and I feel like opinion on them has been down on here ever since backpicks but I'm really not seeing any evidence to suggest that LeBron was much worse than Kobe or Wade during those seasons, if he was at all. DPM sees LeBron and Wade relatively even and even a rung above Kobe and tbh I'm inclined to agree.
Ben's film study and points about LeBron's improvements as a passer and defender in 09 are great and all but by all accounts he seems to have already been an MVPish player by 06.
A big deal has also been made about Luka supposedly eclipsing young LeBron but there isn't any evidence to support that except the inflated box score stats of today. He was probably on pace with LeBron during his rookie and sophomore years but he's flatlined since while LeBron made a leap in 06 and another in 08. He really is the Kobe to LeBron's Mike.
I think of '06 as a solid MVP level season, with '07 a bit below that because he regressed somewhat on offense though he did improve quite a bit defensively which makes up for that to some extent. Interesting that the regression shows up on DAKRO DPM too.
I also agree that Lebron has a great case for having a better regular season in '06 than Kobe. He was a more efficient scorer and was clearly doing quite a bit more as a playmaker that year than Kobe, and while Kobe could theoretically be a better defender at that point, for the most part he sucked on that end in '06 giving very little effort, though of course when it was a national TV game Kobe loved to gear up and make a huge show of hounding opposing ball handlers full court once or twice, which inevitably would end up making highlights and are all over Youtube now if you search for it.
2006 Lebron also beats Kobe in box based advanced stats with a solid advantage in BPM, VORP, win shares, and even edges him out in PER even though that stat is way too generous to raw scoring volume and greatly undervalues playmaking.
As far as supporting casts, they were both weak and I'm not sure which I would take, but the Cavs managed to win 5 more games. Both rosters were made up of journeymen for the most part.
I think it's reasonable to prefer Kobe and Wade for a playoff run that year though. Kobe was obviously much more experienced and could probably be a more impactful defender on a championship level roster, and Wade played the same Pistons team that beat the Cavs and was far better against them than Lebron was. Some of that was fluky hot shooting on 2 point jumpers, Wade shot an insane 30 of 49 on 2s from 10+ feet in that series, but it happened so he gets credit for it. He put up 27/5/6 on a ridiculous 68.4 TS% in that series, which was also played at an almost comically slow pace of 83.8 possessions/game.